What Will You Build?

Mary Oliver wrote about the importance of each of our miniscule efforts in shaping our collective experience of the world. We’re all crickets pushing individual grains of sand up the hillside. Maybe your grain of sand will be used to build a castle, or maybe it will end up in someone’s eye. Either way, in our ability to choose to roll our little bit of sand this way or that, we hold immense power.

At this time of year, when the turning of calendar pages has compelled so many to plot how they might reshape their lives to fit the mold of some societal ideal, I think it’s worth considering reshaping this mission for self-improvement into one for collective betterment. Afterall, true individual success is reliant on the success of the whole; anything else is simply exploitation. Our current system rewards our participation in a model that’s built on extraction and violence. In deciding to ignore where our money really goes when we buy a new planner or skincare serum produced by someone working for less money each hour than we’d pay for a cup of coffee, we affirm the belief that our own betterment is worth more than the basic respect of anyone else. We might feel good using that planner or serum. We might even call it “self-care”. But can care come from violence? I’m not sure it can, and I am sure that it doesn’t have to. There must be a better way to nurture ourselves and one another. There are hundreds of small models of this reciprocal model of exchange, but it’s clearly not enough. So, why not build one?

What can we build that sustains us while serving the world beyond ourselves?

What can we build together?

What can we build to last?

It’s a big question in some ways, and one that can certainly feel overwhelming. However, it’s important to remember that though its consequences may be mighty, the first steps of the answer may be as small as a grain of sand.

It’s equally important to remember that, whether consciously or not, you decide how to push around your grains of sand every day. Through how you speak to those around you, what receives your attention, how you tend to areas of your life and the larger world–even what you don’t do–all of it determines where the sand ends up. Like it or not, a decision is already being made.

So, how do we choose what to build with our little bit of sand, our small sphere of influence over the cosmos? There are many ways to decide, and importantly, it’s a decision that must be made again and again each day, and so there are many opportunities to change your mind. I like to approach this question with Ayana Elizabeth Johnson’s Climate Venn Diagram, which asks “What work needs doing? What brings you joy? What are you good at?”. This framework allows one to see how to utilize their abilities and passions to meet a pressing issue; it provides solid ground to start from. However, I like to add two more components to this assessment: “What am I currently able to give?” and “Who is already doing this work?” These questions narrow the scope of the actions yielded by Johnson’s Venn diagram by considering not only what one is good at, but what one can offer in this exact moment.

“What am I currently able to give?”

Maybe you’re managing care for someone else, or you recently took on more responsibilities at work, or one of a million other things have happened that have limited your capacity for now or indefinitely. It happens, and we can’t allow shame about that to detract from the work that we are still able to do. But we also must be realistic in determining how much we can contribute to avoid stalling progress by failing to deliver on something that someone else may have excelled at.

Take stock. Make an inventory of your current commitments, free of judgement. Then, once you’ve laid out what of your time and resources are already spoken for, take a look at what’s left. This analysis can inform how you engage in the types of work you’ve highlighted through Johnson’s Venn diagram, ensuring that you don’t overcommit yourself, nor do you stop short of all you’d like to and are able to give.

“Who is already doing this work?”

You’ve come up with a few small or large scale actions that you’re equipped to do, you have the capacity for, you’re energized about, and that are valuable to solving an issue you can about. That’s amazing, but before jumping into this work blindly, starting a new organization on your own, or beginning an independent project from square one, look around to see who’s already working on this. The climate has some outstanding defenders on its side across all sorts of disciplines, and by finding them, you can not only gather helpful insights for your own work, but you may also be able to join an existing effort. Earth’s mightiest heroes tend to be diffuse, and strengthening an existing organization is likely to produce a greater impact than forming a new one or working as a lone soldier.

Additionally, a great deal of climate work is and has always been done by marginalized groups, often, women of color. This work has been deliberately buried by mainstream political leaders and environmental activists alike. It’s critical to change this in your own work by giving due credit to the communities responsible for the labor of care that has led to the success of numerous environmental justice movements, yes, but also equally important free school lunch programs and other often overlooked elements of climate justice.

An example of this from my neighborhood in West Philadelphia is the collections of long-time residents that have held regular block clean-ups for decades. Despite this dedication, residents have been stereotyped as careless due to the piles of trash that pile up in these residential areas from neighboring college students. Naturally, this dynamic, as well as a slew of offenses from surrounding universities and their students, has contributed to growing resentment toward newcomers among some residents. This points toward the need to acknowledge that our eagerness to participate in existing movements won’t always be wanted. It’s important to respect this and to engage in the causes we care about in other ways while giving credit to those who have been a part of making change in big and small ways for much longer than we have.

Though this guide has been brief, I hope it inspired you to take action this year for not only your personal development, but for the development of the world you want to live in. None of us can do it alone, nor should we, as we’ve seen this lead to siloed efforts with minimal impact. Instead, we can join together, each bringing our gifts and our many hands to make something new, something we desperately need. In brief, you don’t have to build a mountain, but you can roll a grain of sand.

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Rachel Carson National Environmental Leadership Fellow Miles Levesque

Miles Levesque (he/him) is a first-year Environmental Studies and Sustainability student at Drexel University, committed to advancing local environmental policy and education through his studies, academic projects, and local advocacy. Currently, he is working as a research assistant in the Climate Pedagogy Incubator, an experimental learning community primarily composed of Drexel University professors dedicated to implementing various pedagogical techniques to teach climate justice across all fields.